BRICS and Beyond

Li Xing is Director, Research Center on Development and International Relations, Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark.

’We are living in a period of displacement of meridians. Is it a power shift or a paradigm shift? Li Xing maps four crises of the international system, functionality, scope, legitimacy and authority, and in so doing raises a central question about the turn of interests for China and the other BRIC countries: will the future be characterized by systematic conflicts between traditional powers (particularly, the American polarity) and the emerging powers (BRICs)? This book proposes a series of highly interesting reflections on this essential topic in order to understand the challenges of the contemporary world.’ Giuseppe Cocco, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ’In this important and pathbreaking book, editor/author Li Xing and his co-authors expertly examine how the rise of China could transform the U.S.-dominated international order. Xing’s noteworthy conclusion is that China and other emerging nations cannot hope to establish an alternative independent hegemony by effectively replacing the United States as the world’s preeminent power. Since China and the U.S. are, in fact, intertwined in a constant process of shaping and reshaping the global order, Xing argues it is in their mutual interest to deal with their relations strategically and constructively, as their bilateral relations can be best adjusted and balanced under multilateral organizations, such as the G20, under which a new type of cooperative partnership between them can be developed. Coming from a distinguished scholar of international relations theory, who possesses a deep understanding of China’s rise and national aspirations, this conclusion goes far to discredit the misguided popular view that China and the U.S. are inevitably destined to go to war in a future battle for global domination.’ Donald Gross, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, USA

• Introduction Understanding the Hegemony and the Dialectics of the Emerging World Order, Li Xing; Chapter 1 Theorizing the Rise of the Second World and the Changing International System, Steen Fryba Christensen, Raúl Bernal-Meza; Chapter 2 Constructing and Conceptualizing “Interdependent Hegemony” in an Era of the Rise of the BRICS and Beyond, Li Xing, Óscar García Agustín; Chapter 3 BRICS and Bilaterals: Synergies and Contestations, Renu Modi; Chapter 4 From Boulders to Ashlars – BRICS of a New World Order: Hierarchies of Power and Degrees of Freedom in the Emerging World System of the Twenty-first Century, Leonid L. Fituni; Chapter 5 G20 and C2: Sino-US Relations as an Institutional Cooperation Game?, Lin Hongyu, Li Xing; Chapter 6 China in Africa: Cool Cash or a New World Order?, Søren Villadsen; Chapter 7 A “New Silk Road” Between China and the Arab World: A Problem for the US or the EU?, Wolfgang Zank; Chapter 8 “Chineseness” as Socialization: China and the ASEAN in East Asian Regionalism, Zhang Jiuan, Li Xing;† NB: An earlier, different version of this chapter has appeared as the Series Editor’s Foreword to the eight Classics paperback reprints in the Palgrave Macmillan IPE Series in October 2013, pages ix–xxii., Timothy M. Shaw;